Abstract
Climate change is one of the most complex issues of the 21st century, and even though there is general consensus about the urgency of taking action at the city level, the planning and implementation of adaptation measures is advancing slowly. The lack of data and information to support the planning process is often mentioned as a factor hampering the adaptation processes in cities. In this paper, we developed and tested a methodology for heat stress vulnerability and risk assessment at the neighborhood scale to support designers, planners, and decision makers in developing and implementing adaptation strategies and measures at the local level. The methodology combines high-resolution spatial information and crowdsourcing geospatial data to develop sensitivity, adaptive capacity, vulnerability, exposure, and risk indicators. The methodology is then tested on the urban fabric of the city of Padova, Italy. Our results show that different vulnerability and risk values correspond to different typologies of urban areas. Furthermore, the possibility of combining high-resolution information provided by the indicators and land use categories is of great importance to support the adaptation planning process. We also argue that the methodology is flexible enough to be applied in different contexts.
Highlights
Climate change is one of the most complex issues of the 21st century, and the magnitude of the problem is globally recognized and largely discussed both in the academic and political arena
Considering the multiple levels of detail of the information produced through the vulnerability and risk assessment, we argue that the methodology can contributes to the planning process on multiple fronts: (i) primarily in the preparatory/analysis phase by increasing the quantity/quality of the information available for a certain territory; (ii) in the development of strategies and measures, giving first guidelines on where and how to do adaptation; (iii) in the implementation phase, to a lesser extent, to adjust adaptation projects under specific circumstances; and (iv) in the monitoring phase, considering that the geo-database and the indicators can be updated showing changes over time and revealing the effects of the implementation of adaptation strategies and measures
There is general consensus about the urgency of taking action to counteract climate change at the city level, but some progress has been made in the field of mitigation, the planning and implementation of adaptation measures at the local level is advancing slowly
Summary
Climate change is one of the most complex issues of the 21st century, and the magnitude of the problem is globally recognized and largely discussed both in the academic and political arena. The 14th edition of the Global Risks Report [1] assess different global risks and their potential impact. According to this analysis, the “failure of climate-change mitigation and adaptation” and “extreme weather events” ( partly associated to climate change) are the primary risks if you look at their likelihood and their potential impact at a global scale. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [2], further warming and changes of the climate system will increase the likelihood of severe impacts for people and ecosystems. The increasing number and intensity of extreme weather events, changes in rainfall patterns, flooding, sea-level rise, and heat waves [7] threaten urban populations, economic activities, and infrastructures in urban settlements
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